Reviews: Anthropology

When Anthropology first came out, it was one of many stories focusing on Lyra's supposed obsession with humans. Unlike the rest of the genre, however, it was also intelligently written. I loved how the narrative weaved through the actual episodes, building up an amazing level of tension and suspense while also remaining very funny. The characters were interesting, and the payoff to the whole mystery, while a tad cliche, was also well handled and masterfully executed.

And then the thing kept going.

A little less than halfway through the story, the entire narrative changes from "Lyra wants to know about humans" to "Lyra is actually human and must go to another world to live with humans." Everything remotely pony related is dropped for incredibly dull, cheesy, and utterly uninteresting tidbits of Lyra trying to find her birth parents. The humans are all unspeakably, annoyingly perfect, especially compared to the very nuanced and multifaceted pony characters from the beginning. All the cleverness from the beginning vanishes entirely for almost ten whole chapters.

Finally, right at the end, the author apparently remembered that this was supposed to be a FIM story, and awkwardly slammed Discord into the picture and turns Lyra back into a pony. Setting up for a bittersweet ending, right? Nope, her condition gets reversed almost immediately, she goes back to Equestria to gather the Elements of Harmony, recruits some human friends, and defeats Discord in less than three chapters.

Anthropology's early chapters are definitely worth recommending, but everything after that barely counts as a My Little Pony fanfic. JasonTheHuman has a brilliant set up here, but failed to capitalize on it in favor of a clumsy, poorly-executed tumor of a plot that damn near made me drop the entire story. Read the first ten chapters, but just know what you're getting in to if you decide to continue.

The Equestria universe mostly consists of fanon rather than canon content. Think about characters as Derpy Hooves, Colgate, Dr.Whooves, Carrot Top, Octavia and many others. Those characters do not appear in the show (except as Extra's), but the bronies have given them a (believeable) character that everybody can enjoy. Lyra Heartstrings and Bonbon are no exception. Lyra is known to the bronies as a cheerish pony who is obsessed about humans and want to become one. Bonbon is her roommate, and in some occassions also her lesbian lover. She is the more serious character. JasonTheHuman has played really well with those two characters.

The story starts with Lyra and Bonbon sharing a small appartment together in Ponyville. Bonbon is a confectioner who wants to work at Sugarcube corner while Lyra is a musician. Lyra though has an interest for mythology and one legendary species in particular: Humanity. She has this crazy obsession already half her life and even turns her hooves into hands from time to time because she enjoys it. This... remarkable behavior is driving her roommate crazy, especially when Lyra is getting paranoid: the government doesn't want that their ponies to know about the warfaring humans and they want to get her...

I won't spoil everything for you, but read it! The character development is really interesting, the plot is solid and the cliffhangers are amazing. You can't predict how the end is going to be. The story has a better quality than My Little Dashie,My Little Alicorn and Through The Eyes Of Another Pony.

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